


Songbird

by 1V1



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Attempted Seduction, Come Eating, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Finger Sucking, Gilded Cage, Loss of Identity, Loss of Innocence, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Psychological Torture, Psychological Warfare, Stockholm Syndrome, Survival, Tentacle Sex, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27813682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1V1/pseuds/1V1
Summary: A stroke of fate or luck, you're flung to an era you shouldn't have been able to survive. But you do. Your benefactor a demon who secrets you away from the world, keen to uncovering how to use you, to what secrets you might hold. Eventually it becomes clear that the demon who has kept you means to keep you until you no longer serve a purpose.You are not made to survive the world.You just are made to survive him.
Relationships: Naraku (InuYasha)/Reader
Comments: 14
Kudos: 110





	1. Sparrow

There should be a rule of the universe.

‘If you get transported through space and time you become a protagonist and thus immune to bad things happening to you.’

Sadly, life wasn’t a fairy tale, and reality was a much colder, harsher thing.

You don’t know or recollect how you somehow managed to go from modern day Japan to it’s feudal era, where warlords reigned and war was well- every single day. A woman was worth one thing and a pound of flesh was still a pound of flesh. You thought the worst of it would be the bandits who chased you down till you found yourself in a warlord’s camp. Then you thought the lechery of soldiers and a warmonger lord would be the worst fate.  
But then came the demons.

Creatures of nightmares and fear personified that cut through meat and bone like paper. Blood soaking soil till it was copper scented mud; screams and fire filling the air till it choked your senses. Tears fell from your face as you ran. Ran and didn’t look back even as your lungs burned and your feet blistered and broke and you lost any idea where you’d arrived and how to possibly go back.

No- the worst things were still to come. And come they did. They came with the buzz of insects, larger than a grown man’s head and following you at a distance. Watching, moving in ways that blocked your path lest you try to face them unarmed. It was terrifying- it was clear they could outpace you, that they could very easily overwhelm and kill you. Yet instead they seemed to herd you to a road, and from that road, towards a castle covered in dark clouds that reminded you so well of fog late at night when not even bright lampposts could be seen in the distance.

Any time you tried to get off the road, to change your path the giant insects would cut you off, red eyes peering at you, as if daring you to challenge them, to run. You, weaponless, clothes dirty and torn, tired and hungry and fearing for more than your life you had but a single recourse. To walk forward, to keep moving.

The castle gates opened without any men posted at them, and the place was empty save for the insects that hovered at the edges, every present sentries that seemed to act as both guide and guard dog. 

“I do hope your travel wasn’t too arduous.” A voice cut through the otherwise terrible silence of the castle grounds, and gravel crunched under feet as a figure approached. A man, perhaps his mid 30s, handsome and with eyes that made your blood run cold. You did not need to see their hue nor shade to know what stood in front of your was not human, that the silhouette of a man was simple a guise. No- this figure was doubtlessly a demon, abet, a handsome human looking one, pale blue eyeshadow serving only to highlight the vibrant inhuman vermillion gaze that cut through you. His clothing was silk, not too elaborate, but you knew it was meant to flaunt power, wealth. More- the man also had armor and what appeared to be scaled tentacles attached to him.

A human figure- but with closer inspection, inhuman features.

He was the worst of that which you would ever know.

The man, demon, introduced himself as ‘Naraku’, claiming he’d seen you emerge from the forest garbed in clothing from ‘a place I know exists, yet cannot be traveled to’. He’d followed you- made sure nothing too terrible or harmful befell you. After all- the bandits would not have survived his swarm of demon bees, nor, would the warlord and his band survive his loyal demonic vassals. It was just a matter of seeing what you were capable of, if you held any power or secrets- and yet he saw nothing. No power, no purification gifts, you for all he could see was just a normal human woman who had the misfortune to appear in a place she did not belong.

His hand was cold when it cupped your face and held it steady, your tears and terror raw in your expression. His own cold and calculating.

“But perhaps, I am simply not looking hard enough.” He let go and you sank into loamy earth, trembling.  
“Come.” He bid, a smile playing on his lips, cruelty in his eyes. “Let us see to your needs… and then we can discuss how you can be of use to me.”

You had no choice- none but to follow him into his castle. To a room with a drawn bath in a wooden tub with water still steaming hot. A fresh kimono laid out- pale pink with white swallows dancing on the sleeves. A golden hairpin adorned with tiny pearls. Finery the likes you knew would have been hard to come by- finery meant perhaps for a princess and not for a guest, not for a meal- you only hoped it was a sign he planned to keep you alive for a time, yet you dreaded what other implications such lavish gifts wrought.

The grime washed away, the kimono fit well, and a woman who refused to meet your gaze and answer any questions appeared and helped you tie the obi, dress in a manner which you assumed would please this demon ‘Naraku’. Which was what mattered now- pleasing the demon who looked at you like he had plans for you, yet was not going to tell you how so. 

Escorted by the woman, (Kagura, you learned. The only one who held a semblance of free will, of self expression, a woman who you surmised, was as trapped as you were. Later you’d learn the truth and the extent of that- but until then she was nothing but a stranger, nothing but a figure who ghosted the castle halls and reminded you what a fate awaited you beyond the gates), you arrived to a large hall. Two tables, across from one another. The one on the raised dais empty save a sake cup and jug, the other before a lavish spread of freshly cooked dishes ranging from sweet meats to steamed fish and roasted vegetables. 

“Come-“ The demon himself appeared like a ghost, stepping from behind a screen and taking his place on the dais. Red eyes traced over you as you curled into yourself, as you wished to hide your form and body, noticing how even a demon’s gaze lingered at your breasts and hips. “-You have not had decent food for some time, and I would not have my guest go hungry.”

You were tentative, moving slowly as you sat seiza in front of the other table, uncertainty clear as you looked to the food, your body both crying out in hunger and fear of being improper and offending the demon host.

“Go on.” His voice was smooth and coaxing. “I have no need to eat- but our conversation will be long, and you will need you strength.”

It was slow- each time you reached out your eyes flickered up to him, seeking approval, fearing reprimand. Yet nothing was there save twisted amusement. Fear lingered in every bite and yet you ate your fill. You drank the water like you had never tasted something so pure and good- and by the time you were sated, half the dishes had been picked clean.

“You did not favor the pork.” Naraku noted eyeing the braised dish. “I’ll have it changed to something more to your liking.” There was a dark promise there, a hint of things to come. He planned to keep you alive for now. It was only then you noted how he lifted his cup and drank. Not once had he touched it while you’d eaten. Perhaps it was a gesture only meant to make him appear more human, more approachable.

Such thoughts lingered in your mind as he spoke.

“We have not had the pleasure of being formally introduced.” Your table removed, the dishes cleared, the demon smiled sweetly.

“I am Naraku, lord of his castle, the demon that will rule this world and rightful owner of the shikon no tama.” He spoke these things like you knew them, like they meant something to you but alas, it rang hollow. “And you-“ he smiled. “-Are my most unexpected guest.”

The conversation that followed only served to create the chains you would know for a lifetime to come.

Your name was unknown to him, as was your home and explanation of how you came to arrive in that forest. He seemed to believe your claim of coming from another era, another time- and his smile widened when he learned you knew of events that had yet to be, yet to come.  
“I’ve no interest in the affairs of men-“ he said, taking another drink of sake, “-but you claim your time is bereft of demons. I cannot help but wonder how such a thing would come to be.” You had no answers for him, only guesses, only assumptions. 

In the end he seemed mollified by what you could tell him except-  
“Another is like you I suspect. A woman from another era. A girl, a child really. Kagome Higurashi.” The name was not one you knew, he seemed not surprised at this. “She is a powerful miko who aims to take the shikon from me- and her soul is that of the woman originally tasked with it’s protection. So I cannot help but wonder- who’s soul do you have hidden inside you?” Red eyes glowed in the dim lamplight.  
“What powers do you possess that have yet to be unlocked?”

His decent from his place had you frozen in your own, and once more, a cold hand cupped your chin and tilted your face to not escape his gaze.  
“I look forward to finding out.”

Such began your time and life as Naraku’s ‘most honored guest’.

It wasn’t terrible- as far as how you fared, you could ask for little better. The food he provided you was always decent if not a bit excessive, the kimonos and garments he gave you well-tailored, he gifted jewelry that matched, he granted you leave to walk the castle grounds freely. You had your freedom to read of what books and scrolls you could find, he often asked if you had any requests- from food to entertainment he seemed disturbingly willing to provide for you.

He simply said all he wanted in exchange was your loyalty, and your power should you have any.

Which begged the question- how long did this kindness last, how long till he grew tired of waiting and would press for that which you so clearly lacked? You dared not run. A cursory glance over the castle walls was nothing but a sheer drop, and the road in was covered in a thick blanket of miasma, which Kagura gave you a very visceral example of just what happened when it came into contact with living human flesh. You were effectively, a prisoner. A well-kept, pampered one, but a prisoner nonetheless. 

Every night it was the same ritual however. Your presence summoned by Kanna, the pale ghostly mirror child or Kagura, the cold aloof wind demoness, to dine with their master. He would sit upon is dais, only a sake cup and jug on the table, while you ate in relative silence. Only after eating did he ask after your day, sometimes inquiring if you liked things he’d ‘gifted’ you. Which dishes you liked best, if the jewelry was to your liking, if the kimono fit well or if you found anything lacking.

It was your mistake, when you mentioned you felt lonely, and that you missed the sounds of songbirds.

The next morning, a single songbird was in a bamboo cage, it’s voice light and sweet.

By night, the bird lay dead, eyes glassy and pale- a terrible truth finally exposed as Naraku’s summoned was met with your horrified expression on confusion.

“Ah.” He smiled, “You see, nothing can survive my miasma long, and even with an antidote such weak creatures expire over time regardless.” Your eyes widened as you looked to the food laid out, to the way he smiled and his eyes narrowed in delight.

“Which is why I keep you so close. No matter how many poisons you ingest, no matter how thick of miasma I coat this mountaintop castle with, no matter what I do, you remain unaffected, as pure and clean as the day you arrived.” Fingers so cold, so inhuman danced over your face, tucking a stray hair behind your ear.

“I wonder what it will take to taint that purity- what other strange powers your body might house in secret.” A hand hovered down, a hair’s breath from the obi that kept your clothing shut from him. “What might I use to my own personal gains?”

You couldn’t eat that night.

Come dawn a new songbird was in the cage, singing sweetly unaware it’s fate.

You wept for it.

So began the slow process of understanding the demon’s desire, and his ultimate goal. Kagura would arrive and help you dress for the day, lay out your breakfast before she’d lead you to a place in the castle where various spiritual tools and weapons would be lain about. Each one tested, wielded- Naraku seemed keen to discover if you held any skill in combat and you could tell there was a twisted satisfaction in Kagura when you showed no such abilities. She loathed him, you discovered, and you kept such knowledge close. You wanted to survive, to escape to go home.

Everyday a new songbird would sing. Every night, a songbird would lay dead in the cage, glassy eyes and feathers dull. 

Eventually weapons were traded for talismans. Blades for brushes. Yet nothing you crafted held anything in them. Not power nor purification. Scattered to the wind, nothing was gained, nothing was lost. 

Then began the tests with your blood. Drops on paper on steel on wood and salt- it held no mystic effects, no magical properties. 

Naraku joked he could take a piece of flesh if he truly wanted, he could make you grow your limbs back as if they were new- but “I prefer the flesh I partake in to be freely offered.” 

You knew the gaze of men. You knew the darkness of what war breeds. You knew what lay beyond castle walls, walls which now roamed with demons on the other side, miasma no longer able to contain you. You knew what lingered in covetous red eyes when you left the dining hall and returned to your room. You understood the smile on the inhumanly handsome face as he drank sake only so you might fall under the illusion that he was not the demon he was, that he too, could play at human.

The following day you realized why you never felt at ease in the castle, why you never felt truly relaxed- his gaze lingered around you. Through the eyes of his demon insects that hovered on the ramparts, through his incarnations Kagura and Kanna, through the mirror in the bathing area half misted with steam- Naraku never once had left you alone. Never once, had he not seen and known you.

It was horrifying, humiliating. 

Yet you steeled your tears. You had long stopped weeping over the loss of your life, of your freedom. Now all that lingered was survival- a hope for an escape. He was prone to vanishing for days on end- something called his attention, something threatened him with powers he could not face without seeking to amass his own defenses.

You hoped one day the miasma would fade, the demons die, no longer sustained by his will- Kagura and Kanna free to leave as you wished to leave. You hoped, but you did not count on it.

You chance came in the form of foolish man, and even greater fools he called friends.

It was surreal- hearing voices that did not belong to Naraku or his two female incarnations. A man, young, brash and loud- his road echoed with the crash of something akin to glass shattering as suddenly miasma swelled around the castle. 

Cloaked in red, hair like snow and ears of a dog- Inuysaha, the one Naraku had once called a thorn in his side. With him other characters you quickly identified. Mirkou, a lecherous monk with a cursed hand. Sango, a demon slayer who’s kin Naraku controlled. And finally- the fabled Miko he feared, Kagome.  
The other woman from an era that did not belong.

What must they have thought- to seek out their enemy to find his stronghold empty save a lone human woman, immune to his miasma? Your fear and shock at seeing other persons for the first time in months- you should have called out to them, should have tried to go to them, to explain-

“Who are you?“ The blade, larger than any other you’d see was leveled at you, and you hid behind the columns, as fear lanced your chest. “What’s a human doing at Naraku’s castle?” Inuyasha gave chase, his sword cashing down, blocking your path to your room, the only sanctuary you’d known. 

A cold hand encircled your waist, a silky voice brushed past your ear as hard bone armor dug into your back.  
“Is it not obvious Inuyasha?” Naraku pulled you to his side, his body like ice. “Just as you have your priestess-“ His smile was cruel, and it dawned on you that perhaps the power he sought from you was something that could not be separated from you, that could not be used in a way that would grant you any freedom.  
“-I have mine.”

The next castle was smaller, but no less a pretty cage for you. Naraku no longer granted you songbirds doomed to a slow death. No more did he bother with fine gifts and the illusion that you were a ‘guest’. You were something he had claimed, and as far as his enemy was concerned, you were his ally. In a single act, he’d sealed your fate by his side. He’d uncovered what secret your body held.

You were immune to demonic powers- miasma, barriers, illusions, magical blades of wind and fire and power and auras- It was water off a ducks back. Nothing could touch you save tooth and claw.  
Nothing save cold hands that held you tucked into his side as he lead you through the estate, telling you where things were located, where you were permitted and where was prohibited.

“So quiet.” His breath smelled of sake, tinged with the faint acidic scent his miasma often carried. “Perhaps my priestess has been a bit overwhelmed. I did not expect Inuyasha to arrive as he did.” His red eyes held mirth, amusement at your situation, at your attempts to avoid his looks.  
Lips caressed your knuckles. “I have instructed Kagura to procure staff and other necessities for you. As lady of the castle you will have need of them.”

Like he always did he left you alone, bereft of knowledge and freedom.

Yet everything he said came to be. 

Kagura arrived, staff composed of demons, both humanoid and not in tow. She informed you that Naraku had chosen to make you the mistress of the castle, that it would be his new fortress and your role was simply to keep it ‘operational’. The demons averted their eyes from you, and it was your mistake trying to converse with them. The only one brave enough to talk back and tell you it’s name was dead by dawn the next day, body mangled and half eaten. 

“They are servants.” He said coolly. “They know their place- none are to touch you, harm you, converse with you.” No longer did he sit idle upon a dais. Now he sat near, close enough he could feed your from his plate, pour your sake. “None are allowed to look upon you.”

“Except you.” You replied. Understanding then his intentions. His designs on you and what powers you possessed. 

“Except me.” His hand was cold as it brushed away the first tear you’d shed in months, the knowledge and acknowledgement of his lust finally in the open. 

Days past. You found busy work in simply watching the demons go about their tasks, in watching them try to mimic what life must be like in a normal human castle. You watched them amass food and weapons- preparations before a siege you surmised.

You no longer held the illusion of escape. No longer did you think that Naraku’s enemies would become allies, that they might grant clemency, mercy. He’d crafted you into this position, you had benefited from his actions, his ‘kindness’ for too long. No- to survive and have any hope to fend off a painful death was to work with your prison keeper. If you wished to live, you could not afford delusions of the time you’d left behind, of returning through the woods that had no name. 

It was over dinner that you spoke to him first. That you broke the silence before the meal had ended.

“Naraku.” Red eyes lifted from the sake cup, staring into your own, filled with curiosity… and excitement. “It occurs to me that while you title me as your priestess, I am beholden to no god.” You lifted your cup, empty and wordless he filled it.  
“You are not a god, but a demon.” You drank and saw his flash of irritation. He’d be likened to a God if he could. You’d not give him that. “As well you title me mistress and lady of this castle…” You lowered the sake cup and looked at him, at the red eyes that coveted you and your powers, that played with you not because he needed you, but because it simply suited him. You were a pawn, that much was clear. A deception designed to distract his enemies and confound them in your very existence. You were a tool, a weapon he had crafted to use when and only when, the timing was right.

“If I am such, then you do me a great disservice.” You do not flinch as the word leaves your lips.  
“Husband.”  
You blink, breaking the tension. Getting up, you don’t bother waiting for his permission, waiting for the questions he always asks as if he really were interested in your day, in your thoughts and actions.  
“At least make it a nice ceremony.” You shut the door behind you. 

You do not see his smile in the dark.


	2. Crane

As expected, he prepares.

The gifts return, and it’s clear he means to humor you. No expense is spared- the jewelry, combs, pins- all are beautiful, richly embellished things that cost fortunes. Money matters little to him, that much was clear when he first gifted such trinkets to you and then how easily he left them behind in the other castle. Now as they appear daily you understand it is a means he wishes to flaunt the reward for docility and acquiesce to his desires. Even as a demon, men are men in the end you think.

The silk kimonos become more ornate, more complex in designs, and unforgiving as well, more layered. Kagura takes pains to help you dress in the mornings, and adjusting to the more elaborate robes is an annoyance you bare. It is all a game in the end- a brief entertainment to stave off the tedium that is sure to follow. You’re a trinket in his collection, not unlike a doll he might take out and play with at his whimsy. But the game is for life and death, for demonic power and rule over the land. He once said the affairs of men do not concern him, yet it never escaped your notice how the castle was once home to humans. The marks of residency that linger in worn paths and wooden grains. 

It is stolen you assume, just as all things he gifts you are. It matters little you tell yourself. The humans who came before are dead. Naraku is not known for mercy let alone allowing any semblance of risking exposure. For all his strength and might he is secretive, furtive in what he does share- a telling thing. You know he is strong, the many demons now under his power testament to that. But he is cautious, wary. There is no trust in them, nothing that might hint he would not hesitate to kill them all if it suited him. All the more reason you seek to become useful. Become more than just a trinket and toy.

It takes six days before Kagura arrives, wedding robes in hand.

It is a mockery of ceremony, but it is a ceremony. Demons bow, make offerings, the sky is clear, miasma lifted, ‘A gift’ he says, ‘for my bride on her wedding day’. You appreciate it, even if it is a paltry, useless gesture. Still as you drink the wine you feel his presence beside you, oppressive, dark and cloying thick in it’s malice. Not for you perhaps but-

“Husband.” You sit proper by his side, the food decadent and rich. Various demons who have vowed loyalty to him make light of the marriage, finding it humorous how their lord has made a bride of a priestess immune to demonic power and influence. “I find myself growing weary of these games.” You level your sight at the demons, all powerful in their own right. All threats who’d sooner kill you or claim you for themselves if they could.  
“Kill these weaklings and be done with it.” The air grows cold, silence passes over the room.

Then they clamor, they snarl and hiss and bare their fangs and claws and demand he teach you to better your wagging tongue.  
Naraku beheads the one who says that first. “Is that all my wife desires?” His voice is amused, his red eyes glittering with dark glee at your demand for their deaths. 

“No.” You lift your cup. “Be as messy and violent as you like- but do so avoid disturbing our dinner.” He sucks in a breath and you see it from the corner of your vision- desire. His smile is cruel and his actions crueler. You thought you knew what to expect, what violence you’d be subjected to- but nothing he had done prior readied you for the carnage he inflicted. The screams and torturous ends he gave out to those who were once loyal to him. You had thought that demanding the deaths of the vassal demons would help cripple him, perhaps weaken his hold in some fashion. A miscalculation. He was simply toying with them as well, using them. They ultimately were pawns, and easily disposed of and replaced. Your hopes to make the snake bite it’s own tail failed... but there was a deep satisfaction in knowing they were dead. That the evils they commit would be no more. Small mercies, small graces.

You looked down at the floor, the blood splatter and gore and the stench of bile and death. A perfect ring around you, his barrier keeping every drop from ever landing close enough to risk marking you. His visage was marred- blood splattered his face, coated his hands and upper arms. The wet sound his shoes made on the floor loud in the now empty room.

You lifted the cup to him.

“Come.” Your hands shook, but your voice didn’t waiver. “Sit beside me and drink our nuptial wine.”

He did so, laughing as you filled his cup and offered him food from your plate.  
“Did you really think I’d invite any that would pose a risk? Think I’d kill any that would be of use?” He had seen through your ploy and you just ate a bite of fish before humming.

“Perhaps.” You smiled to yourself. He was two steps a head of you still. But the game was not over. You were not dead yet. “But it let me see what you could do.” It let you see part of his powers- and how he would consume the flesh of the dead. Make it apart of himself.  
“It allowed me to know more about the man who is now my husband.”

Cold hands shot out, gripping your wrist in a painful display of strength. The blood that soaked cloth dripped down his arm, your own, staining skin.  
“And if it pleases me to no longer play this game? To consummate this act and force your little drama to a reality?”

You push back.

Perhaps he did not expect it- that you would actually defy him, rebel against him, that you would try to strike out. But in the moment he is prone, on his back, your body above him, fine golden jewelry decorating your hair and neck and silk robes parting to expose unmarked creamy flesh. You hover above him, moving like a viper, straddling his waist, robes hiked up, rumbled, heat passing from your body to his.

“You once said you never took flesh that was not freely offered.” You leaned down, daring. “Liar.”

You remained that way, atop him, his hand a crushing vice around your wrist, both of you coiled ready to strike. Slowly, his smile returned and his eyes narrowed in delight.  
“Wife.” The word spoken with an air of finality. A tone of possessiveness. “Your lord husband was mistaken.”  
He sat up, effortless even with your weight atop him. The bone armor dug into you, uncomfortable and hard like the rest of him. All liken more stone than flesh. The blood that marred him now coated you as well. “I thought you would be against consummating our union after seeing my powers, seeing the grotesque nature of this form.” The thick tentacle at his back wrapped around your waist, dancing at the edge of your obi. “But if you feel you can stomach what it means to be a demon’s bride…” The beautiful sash was cast aside, quickly soaking up blood, forever marred and defiled.  
“Then a demon’s bride you will be.”

He undressed you there amidst blood and gore, not using his hands but the tentacles on his back, extended and grown they delicately peeled away the layers, and you made no show of your fear or desire. Naraku was as equal parts unpredictable as he was easy to read. He’d not allow another to touch or witness you, but he’d also show you no mercy. Thus far his lack of torture and pain had been a part of his game with you, a tactic to keep you afraid. Now as he undressed you, so gently like he was a well known lover, you knew he would follow through with cruelty. This was a prelude, a taste of what he’d grant only when it amused him to do so.

By the time the last robe fell, your nudity was nothing- the chill of the room negligible. There was heat in his eyes, a hunger. You had no desires like his- but you would have what mercies you could.

You pulled away from him, hand gently holding onto the belted sash at his hips.

“Come along husband.” You said, as if you were not naked but rather dressed still in fine robes. As if your bare feet were not walking through puddles of blood.  
“We have a bed to sanctify.” 

The walk to his room was long and it amused you as he casually coated the castle with his miasma, killing it’s residents. It was a bit of a pity- you’d have to see to their replacement, but it confirmed his possessive nature, his loathing of your willingness to force his hand. It confirmed one thing- that he viewed everything and everyone at this castle as disposable, save you.

His bed room was opulent, if unused. You’d never seen him enter it, but tonight it had been lit, the sheets freshly cleaned and spread in mock anticipation at your arrival.

It pleased you when he strode behind you, hands at your hips, lips ghosting over your neck. His bone armor had been discarded- a welcome change. He was man under all of it- demon or not.  
“Wife.” There it was- the growl. The desire of a carnal type. Lust for sex and not blood. You’d won this round, now it was only a matter of surviving it. Pulling from him you did you best to crawl over the bed, to turn and lay back among the pillows, displaying your body to his red eyes. 

“Come to bed husband.” You held out a hand.  
“Join me- Naraku.” His name was something you so rarely said, and for good reason. It always attracted his attention. Now it was no different. Now he looked at you, hungry, lusting, wanting. His gaze never wavered as he undressed, clothing and armor falling to the floor. Only breaking contact as he peeled away his leg covering and tabi. Despite some of his demonic qualities- the man was still shockingly handsome as he was the first day you met him. His tentacles had long stopped bothering you in appearance- and now seeing him naked, seeing the dark spider scar on his back you felt the ember you long smothered begin to burn. 

Your breasts to his back you gasped at the tentacles made room for your body, wrapping around you, slipping under your breasts to caress them in kind.  
“Despite what you make think-“ Your hands traveled the expanse of his chest, pushing at muscle and flesh, “-I do want tonight to be pleasurable for us both.” Your hands stopped at his hips, the sharp angle that lead down to the thatch of dark hair and his cock.  
“If you plan to kill me eventually, why not at least enjoy what I am given?” You mused.

“And my pleasure is a part of that?”

“Isn’t it?” Thumbs traced circles into his hips as his tentacles moved over you back, holding your heated body to his cold one. “If I please you, provide uses to you, would that not make me worth keeping? I am immune to demonic powers- and to detection from your enemies. A living mist to hide you from prying eyes.” His hiss is loud as your hands trail over his half hard cock, stroking him. “You can’t kill me yet, and you cannot take my power into your own- if you could have you’d have done so sooner. No- this is a much better arraignment. You provide for me, and I provide for you.”

“I could simply lock you away.”

“But where is the fun in that?” You lick the shell of his ear, feel his chuckle. “Why bother keeping a toy if you can’t bring it out to play?”

Play you did.

Your hands on his cock stroked him to hardness, sighing against him when you discovered the way it moved, flesh shifting and thickening, lengthening. The soft tease came easy. “Are you trying to impress me?”  
“Is it working?”  
“We will find out.”

You moaned when his tentacles rubbed over your body, when he spun and made you sit astride him, wet heated pussy dripping onto cold cock. You let him see your raw expressions, the fear and excitement as he touched you with the thick appendages, holding your arms above and behind your head, thrusting your chest out for him to lick and suckle. 

You moaned when he bit down, and you licked when one of his tentacles hovered above your lips. 

How lewd you must have looked, sucking and licking at inhuman flesh, caressing it like a lover. Did he feel it, did it please him to watch you suck on his tentacle like it was a cock? Hear you gag and choke and drool as it thrust in, fucking your face and made you cry? Did he enjoy knowing how you ground your body down against him as he violated your mouth, your cunt clenching on nothing, dripping slick with perverse desire. 

Did it please him to watch your writhe in his lap, willing, an obligate whore for a demon that only looked the part of a man?

You couldn’t be sure, but as the other two tentacles came to caress, your found yourself gasping at the friction, at their attentions. The one in your mouth pulled away, slick with spit, a thin translucent strand connected it to your lips and you moaned at the sight of it’s change, narrowing, elongating. You vaguely knew Naraku could shapeshift- and the thought of him changing his body to better torment you was equally thrilling as it was terrifying. 

Back between your lips, the tentacle was void of the once scale surface, now liken skin, soft and malleable. You licked and suckled at the tip, teasing, moaning as he thrust in this time, gentler, sliding down your throat till you felt it bulge and distend your neck. It cut off your air yet at the same time you liked it- the pain it wrought and how he’d pull back just enough to let you gasp and breathe before slowly lowering the appendage back down, making you gag and tremble, oxygen cut off. 

It did not help that the other tentacles busy themselves elsewhere. Whatever demons Naraku had consumed must have been strange indeed, because while one tentacle slipped between your legs, running back and forth over your slit, rubbing your clit and soaking it’s scales in your fluids, the other had split apart from itself- two nodules from one, each petal like in how they unfolded and attached themselves to your breasts, sucking like babes seeking milk.

Your hips rocked against the one between your legs, your chest thrust to the flowers that sucked at your breasts and your mouth swallowed the one who’s length violated your throat.

All you could feel and hear from Naraku however was a low hum of satisfaction, and cruel amusement as he toyed with your body at his leisure.  
“My wife-“ His words honey sweet as the tentacle in your mouth pulled away fully- you blinked through tears, snot- he’d kept you half choked, half gagged on it for ages it felt like yet you’d twistedly come to like the feeling. The feeling of him fucking your face without once cumming down your throat like a human man might have. “-Seems to enjoy the most twisted of perversions.” His hand cradled your head as he guided you to look down your body, to see the twin appendages letting go of your breasts- nipples swollen and red, marks left behind and telling of bruises that would later bloom. He guided your eyes further still to the tentacle between your legs- soaking wet with your juices, and a single motion- it pulling away just to slap at your clit had you scream in delight. Pain and friction, your orgasm left you shaking, arms grasping around Naraku’s neck to remain upright.

“Is-“ Your voice was hoarse, painful, “-Is it perverse…to want my husband?” You did your best to smile at him, to let him know you would not break like this.  
“To show him my devotion, my willingness to please him.” A hand moved down his chest. “To better ready myself for submitting to his will?”

Red eyes glowed in the dark as he bent, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he laid your naked form upon the bed.  
“And how long will you submit to me little wife?” He moved atop you like a man, his dark hair a curtain that cut away the night and framed it so you could not escape his face, his demonic eyes. “How long will you spread your legs willing before I must spread them for you?”

Weak, you still reached up, tangled a fist in those dark locks.  
“Please me, and you will find out.”

His cock sheathed itself in your soaked cut without warning or further preparation. 

It was large- larger than the one you’d stroked earlier and it made you cry out in alarm. Your walls stretched around him, not breaking, but tight- Almost too tight as he did not allow you time, he simply pushed, sinking into your wet heat till your felt his balls rest against your ass. You could only cling to him, shaking as he held you there, grinning as you tried your best to bite back tears of shock and soreness. Not pain- you knew pain and this was only him testing, teasing at what he could do if he really wanted to harm you.

As you gasped, looking up him though wet lashes you saw him covet, saw him hungry and saw him for what he denied he was.

Just a man in the end.

Hips snapped back and forth as your body followed- wet sounds of your cunt swallowing back down to his root, to where dark curls brushed over your skin and where he filled you to the point you could feel him distend your body to accommodate his girth and length. He said nothing, save for growling and grunting as he fucked you. There was nothing ‘passionate’ or ‘tender’ about his movements. They were hard and rough, made to make you cry out and cling to him as he forced himself in and out of your body, as he forced you to feel every drag of the thick cockhead scraping along your walls, rubbing over and past the swollen bud of flesh inside your passage, easing his way back each time. 

Naraku fucked you- he owned you and he meant for you to know it. 

You clung to him despite it, you held your hands in thick dark hair and arched your back as his pace grew more frantic, as he swirled his hips and made stars dance behind your eyelids. You screamed as something brushed your clit- an orgasm forced and he only used it as a means to lift your torso till you were astride him, till gravity had you sinking down to engulf him entirely. The feeling of him so deep, stretching you open and the feeling of sweat slick skin and sticky thighs had you look down the line of your body to see where you were joined. His cock buried between your legs, inside you, a bump against taught skin of your belly as he filled you in a way a human man could not.

Maybe it was a moment of passion, or madness- your hand reached down, caressing the bump, sinking lower till you felt where you were joined to the demon you’d taken as a husband- to the demon who’d made you his prisoner.  
“You’re so deep inside me.” Naraku’s gaze was heated- hungry and insane, he craved you, craved something you dared not name. “My husband- Husband.” Your hands ran over his scalp, through tangled dark hair.  
“Make me a good wife.”

You screamed as he fucked you like that- as his tentacles came forth and violated your mouth, as they fixed to your breasts again, as another slipped down your back and inside your rear passage- it was too much, it was going to break you, designed to break you.

Yet when the haze faded, when you lay limp and sore and covered in a sheen of sweat and spend the demon you called husband sat beside you, clothed in a white haori and nothing else. You breathed deep the air, tinged with scents of sex and more worryingly, blood.

“Such a sweet wife I have.” His voice was laced with amusement, with that cruel sweetness you knew well.  
“You were right in the end.” His hand cupped your face, alarmingly gentle, his thumb brushing a stray tear from the corner of your eye. “You will be of use to me yet.”

In the morning you’d understand his meaning, understand the hunger in your belly and the sudden fullness in your gut. He could not steal your powers, he could not steal your gifts- but he could replicate them. He could create incarnations of himself.

And what did it mean to be a good wife, if not to but provide her husband with a son?


	3. Hawk

Men are men.

Disgusting, basic, primal, unhinged and utterly contemptable in how they lack basic self control. For all Naraku’s posturing on how he’d become a demon, casting off his human wants and desires, going so far as to abandon his human heart, he was still undeniably male.

After the first night spent in your martial bed, waking sore and nearly unable to walk to the chamber pot to relieve yourself let alone bathe, you expected one of three outcomes. The first being Naraku simply would use the threat of sexual intimacy as a means to promise pain while establishing control over you in a manner that was ingrained in you to fear. The other option was he might use it to further attempt to coerce you to trust him and try to play mockingly at domesticity and the ruse you could believe he’d allow no harm to befall you so long as you catered to his desires. The final, and most likely option was he would simply call you to his bed till you were in fact, pregnant, and use you and your body as a means to perhaps test some new demonic progeny in lieu of his usual cast off incarnations. 

You had to admit, his calling you to his bed night after night to lay with him, carnally and benign was a bit strange, but you could glean that perhaps he himself did not understand it. 

But if for nothing, he was an amicable lover all things considered.

A thing you detested him for- it would have been so much easier to keep your own mind and heart tempered had he simply been cruel and manipulative, not lacing his touch with his own annoyed confusion and granting you stunningly good sexual pleasure.

It started simply enough, a furrowed brow, a scowl mired in contention as he’d fuck you open, legs slung over his shoulders as he forced a darting cry from your body as his cock would sink deep into your fluttering cunt, walls pulsing, milking him as you fought back yet another unbidden orgasm from his ministrations.   
“How intriguing.” His voice was detached, like a scientist observing a new chemical reaction. He rarely indulged in dirty talk or much more than mocking commands and saccharine sweet words designed to mimic those of a couple. He never called you ‘wife’ unless it served as a means to mock, and when you were in his bed, and more frequently, under his body, he called you wife as if he meant it in part- if only to remind you of what it meant in this era.

Property.

It did not stop him however from indulging in making you keen and whimper, clit red and swollen from his tentacles slapping it repeatedly, dancing between pleasure and pain until you wept from the stimulation. Nothing stopped him from how he would lick your neck and kiss behind your ear, panting as he’d piston his hips to your own, cock slipping in and out of you with lewd wet sounds, his balls hitting your ass as he’d grip your neck with one hand, pinning your wrists with his other. He could refrain from touching you, violating you at his leisure, you had no say to demand pleasure, no right to ask for it let alone expect it- yet he gave it, took a twisted joy in inflicting it on your body as if you’d deny him, deny the slivers of mercy he’d grant. As if you would not use your body as a means to an end, just as he was.

Your legs would wrap around his waist as surely as his hands would hold down your own. As he would look at you, a glance of minor wonder in his apathy, you would smile sweetly in reply, hiding your desires behind the bliss orgasmic haze granted.  
Naraku cast off his humanity perhaps.  
But he was a man.

And he was weak to the wet heat of a willing cunt.

Sex was sex- and it was a weapon you both might wield against one another. The only thing was who would use it more cleverly? 

While Naraku’s stated purpose of his ‘indulgencies’ were to impregnate you, you had a hunch there was something else he was seeking when he called you to his side. His eyes were every so critical, lingering hairs of a fraction longer than needed. His hands would rest long enough to leech the warmth from your skin, and his willingness to make use of your mouth and ass suggested he was attempting to find meaning in his sexual intercourse beyond his plans. 

You were not wrong in your guess that the nights he did not have you spread and bare under his body, the nights he had you sleep by his side, mocking calling you wife and bidding you keep him warm against the dark chill of twilight and beyond, that his motives were not for simply want of companionship. No, he would always act the part of a human lover, as if you were husband and wife, in wedded bliss with the finery that would be afforded a lord and his lady. He’d comb your hair and help you shed your robes, lay kisses on your spine and the nape of your neck before tucking you to his side, an arm draped possessive over your waist and hip, not allowing escape. 

You drank the feeling in, toxic as it was. You were human after all, touch starved, needy. Survival and your sanity depended on these weaknesses unfortunately. A means to an end, you played your part, kissing him back, traced the cut of his jaw, toyed with lose locks of hair that tickled your shoulder. Spoke softly in hushed whispers of the day and your activities. You afforded this game, the rich lie.

It always was bittersweet when you’d wake alone, unmolested, hoping he’d have changed his tactics in a slip, allowing you to better know where his weakness might lay and be exploited, how to use it, leverage it- how you could craft it to a weapon against him or tool it to increase the odds and length of your survival.

But it was a tell- a sign. 

Naraku was in his way, uncertain of you. How to handle you, how to break you. He was playing to all three parts of your speculations. At times mockingly jesting about taking you in view of his enemies, of allowing your violation from other persons, of torture while he had his way with you. But he’d caress you while he said it, act like he was a great and kind man to not do these things. Other times he acted like lord of the manor, he hired demon aids and stewards for the estate, he made life droll and mockingly ‘normal’ twisting perception of your place, that it was not a prison you lived in but true luxury. That he loved you, adored you even.  
A foolish thing you liked least.

Then there were the times he was most honest. The times his eyes would gravitate towards your belly, your womb. He let you see it often enough, a wordless reminder of his plans, of why he kept you alive, his ‘reason’ for summoning you to his bedside.

But even after a month had past since your wedding night, you’d see his gaze from the corners of you eye. See and feel his presence lingering when he thought himself slyer, when he thought he was menacing but was doing little more than showing you the truth of his hand.

He wanted to see what fruit would be born from his union with you, he wanted to keep you for reasons he didn’t know, likely reasons he thought himself above.

You tested it one night, two months past your first with him, the slight give in your body now a lingering horror and hope of what may come.

“You understand what will happen when the time comes for the culmination of our union do you not?” You spoke so rarely to him like this- cold, purposely guarded and hiding yourself. Usually you were bored, candid in your speech when he would inquire of your wellbeing, when he’d ask after you and your wants. He did so as a courtesy- as a mock display of husbandly affection.

Red eyes looked at you over the cups of tea, still hot. Since your consummation he no longer drank sake beside you. 

“Our child will be attended to by the finest midwives-“  
“No Naraku.” You cut him off, and his eyes narrowed, waiting. He’d learned quickly that when you spoke out of turn it was for a reason, though, he rarely would tolerate it long. “I want to make sure you understand what will happen the moment our child is born.” Our. The term was chosen on purpose. It would do no good to claim it alone. No, you needed to cast the lure, to hook him in place to cement your life past your use.

“From the moment our child lives in this world, our arraignment ends and a new one will take it’s place. I will then have but one purpose- to raise them… I will be a mother- their mother. And no matter what you have done, will do… Our child will be who has my devotion, the one I will place before all other needs and wants.” You lock eyes with him.

“Our son will be powerful- a half demon who shall have what you covet. If you seek to harm him, you shall only condemn yourself to risk a weak skill gained and a woman who’s life will end and a power lost. If you allow our son to thrive, to grow and be nurtured… you will gain the greatest asset you will ever know.”

He did not flinch, did not give a tell as you spoke, warning him of your terms. You would remain as you were, loyal, complacent, so long as your child, a son, was left unharmed and more pointedly, unconsumed by his own father who’d seek the possibility of your powers carrying over to his progeny.

“And what would I gain investing in a half breed born of our union?”

You smile, picking up your tea and drinking it.

“A legacy.”

He did not bother with taking you so far as his bed. It was the first time he ever fucked you outside his rooms, opting to indulge in the vice of carnal delight in the open and not behind the closed doors.

He was a man in the end.

And all men were weak to their notion of power, to the idea of lingering well beyond their own lives.

Such pathetic things, the minds of men.

Still, they had their uses. Naraku’s lay in how he would pleasure you well enough, his mouth between your legs until you wept his name, hips canting, chasing another painful orgasm as his tentacles would plunge in and out of your pussy lips while he drank his fill of your juices. You took his vices and mixed them with your own, allowed yourself to be depraved as he when he would make you sit astride him, clenching his length as he’d fill your womb with more of his come, as he’d fuck your mouth sore while another tentacle would stretch your ass wide, leaving it to gape and wait for him to fill you there too.

You would be a liar to say you did not enjoy sex with him. That you did not in some way look forward to intercourse with him, to what new infliction he’d put upon you. Suckling his fingers before he’d sink them into your cunt while he slapped your clit and ass till red and raw. Mewling his name as he’d carve his teeth into your skin. You liked the taste, salty and bitter on your tongue as his face would contort, his own pleasure raw and unwantedly exposed while you’d please him orally. It was your vice- your secret pleasure. 

To see those glimpses of his weakness, of his flawed personage. To see the power you still held despite all his efforts to deny it to you.

You loved him, in your way. The way a predator does so love another. The way you both sought the other’s destruction.

You loved him enough to let him cradle your ever growing belly, to guide his had to where your child you kick and move, to tell him what would cause his offspring distress and sooth them with the same breath. 

You loved him enough to warn him- that you could feel your own powers weakening the closer you got to the birth of your child- your body now fully devoted to the life growing inside you, the life planted in there by a man who’s only love of you was made by what you gave him and nothing else.

It came as a surprise when he moved you- when he abandoned the estate and instead took you to a remote seaside village, where he left you among humans, where he acquired a small manor and hired aids. A small samurai and his wife, the roles he took and gave you. You had come to birth your child by the sea, far from the warmongering rice fields and the risk of an enemy finding you. 

He hid you. 

He hid you in plain sight, free, unchained, unbound or surrounded by demons, able to flee and seek help from his enemies or from perhaps the humans who lived in the village you’d come to know. You did none of these things. Not out of fear, not out of love, not out of a sense of hope or a sense of obligation.

Practicality.

Your son was born healthy and strong, hair a shade of burnt umber, a gurgling laugh and a smile the would beguile many a woman later in his life. Naught a single trace of demon in his visage save his eyes, hauntingly beautiful red gems that glittered in the dark. The midwives were rightfully alarmed at it- but you smiled at them. 

“He is my son… and he is the son of the demon who will destroy this village when he returns, be we alive or dead. So flee. Flee with your families and your lives. For my husband will kill you to keep this secret, and he will kill because he so covets us, and will not share our lives with any others. Go. Go now while you have time, and pray he does not find you.”

They fled in the night, they warned the villagers who too, fled in fear. A few chose to try and kill you, to try and save their home- a foolish thing, you watched with a minor sadness as the demon swarm of saimyosho easily overtook them. The hum of insect wings lulling your new born son to sleep over the screams of the dying.

Exhaustion from birth, from feeding your son, from it all took you to slumber as well. You did not fight it- you knew Naraku well enough. He was on his way. You could afford rest.

When you woke it was to his scent around you, the writhing mass of tentacles and demonic limbs cradling your body as your son happily cooed in the arms of his father who looked upon him with masculine pride and satisfaction.

His weapon had been forged, now it was only a matter of time to temper and better mold the blade he’d one day become. 

“You warned the villagers.” Ah, disapproval laced his tone, but his eyes were only for your son, the way he supported the babe’s head, the way he rocked him as if he loved him, was a father in more than simply name. He did so openly, he did so to remind you that he held what you had chosen over him, over your own life and wellbeing. He held your son in his arms- and he knew the weakness you now no longer carried inside you.

“It was a courtesy. They helped me live through the birth, a small thing. I surmise you managed to kill them anyway.”

“Indeed.”

“It was better to give them some hope than none. Besides… I cannot be complacent all the time.” He looked up at you, red eyes glittering in mirth. Almost fondly if you dared allow yourself to think him capable of it. 

“No. I would not find you as pleasing as I do if you were.” He drew you close and- his kiss was gentle, a tender thing that was laced with something new, something alien to you.

You gasped when he ended it, when he placed your son into your arms and caressed your face with his hands, for the first time, warm.

“You are not as you were.”

“No. Not anymore.” You paused. You hadn’t accounted for this, for him to be… partly human again. To have reclaimed his human half, to have returned to a state he once thought of as weak.

“I will not ask why you have done this… but it does not change things between us Naraku.” You scowled. You planned around a demon, not a half breed. Your efforts could not afford to be wasted. “You are my husband and father of our child. I expect you to honor that.”

His laughter was cruel, cold, eerie in that it remained the same.

“My darling wife.” He purred, eyes half lidded. “I have so missed you.”

He held you among the demonic limbs, he encircled your body with the mass of pulsating flesh that comprised his raw amalgamate form, imperfect, parasitic. 

In the end, he was a man, and what is a man but arrogance and pride? What is a man but a power hungry fool to his wishes? 

Naraku was in the end just a man.

And when he drank your blood from your breast, lips suckling the bite mark around your tit, mixing with the life giving milk intended for your son, you knew Naraku was intending to end his long lasting fight with his greatest obstacles. 

“Long have I wondered how best to secure your power as my own- and for a time, I had a means to replicate it, now, I can only do this.” He thrust in between your legs, cock fucking you like he meant it to last, to carve a place in your body so it would not be forgotten.  
“You will raise our son, you will try to make him kind, make him human, but he is as much of me as he is of you.” His red eyes bore into your own, wild and unhinged. “He will never be human- he my legacy, my heir, and nothing will change that.” Lips crashed down, painful, tongue demanding as he drank in your scream- an orgasm forced from your abused clit.  
“You are my _wife._ ” He smiled, eyes glittering, knowing. “You will never escape me, what you’ve become, what I have made you.”

You laughed. You embraced him, wrapped your arms around him as he fucked you and filled you over and over till you felt his seed soak the mattress, till you knew without a doubt this final act was his final intention, his final plan laid bare between your legs.

“That was never my plan Naraku.” You held him when it was over, when he was sated, done. “I never tried to escape you, not once.” You kissed the spider scar at his back, you kissed his lips as he tried to pull away, to deny the weakness you had planted inside him, the weakness that was his undoing, that was your survival.

“I only ever planned to outlive you.” 

He did not smile in his usual way. He did not look at you, cold, unfeeling and with the eyes of a demon.

Red eyes laced with a longing, with a thousand unspoken things, a thousand unspoken what-ifs. A final kiss, a final mercy. He passed the scroll into your hands, fingers brushing the warmth of his touch lingering long after he left.

For the brief few months since his birth your son had no name, and you dared not impose one.  
A title to land. The deed to an estate. A fortune of trade contacts and documents of owed tithe and title. A bride’s price proper. A dowery long held in trust and made in mocking now made to a truth.

A name in black ink, sealed with red.

Konwaku. 

You laughed. For all his secrets, for all his bluster and his demonic prestige and air of tightly bound control he’d given you a single thing that was your choice to accept or cast aside at your will with no fear of his reprisal. 

Konwaku it was then.

Pity only it was then the man lacked for foresight to grant you another option. It would have made naming your second child much easier.

Still, you fell into your role with ease. The story easy enough to concoct. A samurai’s wife who’s husband had gone to war- fallen in battle, you inherited his estate and now were widowed. Left to raise two young boys who would inherit as they came of age. You hired retainers, your own armed guards. You used your knowledge of the past to avoid what you knew lingered on the horizon- and you deftly avoided causing too much attention to fall on your small allotted land, defending it, sculpting it to withstand siege and warfare with tactics that would not be invented for some off years to come. You built yourself a fortress among the forest, you hid yourself in plain sight.

Yet your powers could not hide the whispered rumor of the cunning widow at the heart of the woods- the woman with steel cold eyes and as vicious as she was cunning. The woman who hired her own gender to be her armed escort, and who’s sons were prodigies and who’s estate could withstand an army even without a castle’s walls.

You greeted Inuyasha and his companions when they arrived at your door, weapons drawn and eyes full of contempt.

“I’ve been waiting for you, you know.” You invited them in, offered tea and snacks. You sat graceful, robed in fine silks and kept a smile on your face as they covered their own in scowls and thinly veiled disgust and curiosity.

“I admit, I am a bit surprised it has taken as long as it has for you to find me but… perhaps that is for the better. Time has a way of making us adapt to the past, made it easier for us to reflect upon it.” 

“You were the woman we saw at his castle, the one he kept using to hide himself from us, hide the jewel.” The monk, Miroku spoke easiest. He was keen, an observationalist. You took note how he examined you critically, how his gaze lingered longer at the spot of worn wood where your sons typically sat and ate. 

“I was. He was quite pleased when he found me. Or perhaps discovered is a better term? To this day I do not know how it was I came to be in this time, or how he knew where I was. I suspect he had a hand in it, but… my late husband was never one for giving up his secrets.”

“We heard rumors then- a woman in odd clothes, chased by bandits, then captured by a warlord only to have the man dead by a swarm of demons- the few survivors called you cursed, said you went to the demon lair- naraku’s land-“ Kagome, dressed in a miko’s garb looked at you a dawning horror in her face. 

“You were like me.” She blanched. “You are-“

“From another era. Naraku long suspected the same of you, and when I confirmed my origins and gave him what information I could he found keeping me to be… appealing not just for my ability to shield him from prying eyes, but for the fact I was unlike other humans.” You drank the tea, enjoyed the flavor on your tongue. “He enjoyed possessing things, secrets and mysteries especially. Coveted them. I was a mystery he couldn’t solve, a power and knowledge of something unknown and possibly to be used to further his own ends. It was what allowed me to survive as I did.”

The clink of porcelain was loud in the room.

“I learned quickly to adapt. He was not the type to wait for what he wanted, not unless it proved amusing. And amusement will only ever last so long.”

Sango spoke next.   
“You laid with him-“

“Yes? That is typical with married persons-“

“Willingly? You… you laid with him-bore him children- Married-“

“You act like I have done something abhorrent.” You stared them down, hardened yourself. They were foolish, arrogant to think you did not bear the scars, the pain, the aching knowledge of how far and low you’d sunk in order to survive. 

How you had to kill parts of yourself just to last a little longer, stay sane one day more.

“Make no mistake- He never forced me to his bed, nor, did I ever deny him either. It was… always understood between us. I was alive only by his will, and only so long as I proved worth keeping alive. The threat of rape, of death, of torture and pain was my reality every waking moment I spent at his mercy. I lived for his leisure, for his desires and nothing else. I had nothing.” You hissed.   
“I had nothing save my body, my mind. So I used them. I made myself into his living weapon, his doll, his plaything. I became both what he would want and what he would need- and that required me to accept what I had to, make concessions that no person should be forced to chose between. But do not mistake it- I always had a choice, he always made it a choice.”

You sucked in a breath.   
“I chose to survive. I chose to live that way, to accept it, to bide my time and use my body and mind the only way I could. He never let me forget it, never allowed me to ignore it.” You dared them to meet your eyes. All looked away, all save for Kagome.  
“I married him, I loved him, I hated him. I laid with him for the pleasure he gave and lie we shared. I bore him a son when he was alive, another after he was dead. He was my husband.” You breathed.

“He was the only thing that could keep me alive, and the only one who could guarantee it long enough for me to see tomorrow. He coveted me- and in his greed and his cruelty, I knew I could survive better with him than without. He would not allow me death, he would never allow me to escape him. So I did what I had to do. I did what was necessary.” 

Kagome finished your words for you.

“You survived him.”

“I survived.” You repeat, and slow motion she rose from her place, her arms wrapping around you, warm, understanding.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“You… we should have looked harder, tried to find you- but we found a body, we thought-“

“Shikon no miko- Kagome- Not once have I held you or your companions in contempt for failing to kill him. He was powerful, cunning. For every plan he held he had two more in wait. I learned him over the course of nearly two years- And when he finally fell… he saw to it to try a final gambit, a final grasp at something he longed for but knew he could not have.”

You mourned the loss of her embrace, the warmth of her understanding as she went back to Inuyasha’s side, the men silent, Sango’s expression torn.

“…At times, he would linger beside me, touch me in ways I knew were not born of lust or cruel malevolence. He often mockingly would play-act as a doting lover and husband, pretended to be charming and sweet upon me. He wanted me to love him, adore him, and it always perplexed him when I did not fall prey to the ploy, when I did not linger upon it and ask for it. As a demon, I do not think he ever understood the concept of it- and even when he regained the human part of him, when he retook his heart into himself, I think he still did not know what it was that he felt, what he wanted to feel. He was a man in the end. Male. A fool who wanted power and all the things in life he thought he was due. Of those things, a wife, a home, an heir, a legacy- I offered him this, and so he took it. It was his greed, his curiosity, his need for control and power and possession that allowed me to use myself against him, to carry his progeny and bring our son into this world knowing what he might do.”

You thought to the scroll. To the name he gave your first born son. To the treasure he hid in the house he left you at, how he took the time, the effort to ensure you’d survive, to ensure you would indeed, outlive him.

“He loved me, if only because to him, I was something he could call his own. I was something of his, and the person I have become would never be able to escape his memory. I am as much his legacy as his sons. He and I had an accord- and in the end… I outlived him. He honored our agreement. He did his duty as he swore he would.” Your sigh was heavy, the weight of your past lingering, the shadow of his hands on your skin, the coldness of his kiss a ghost on your lips.

“Naraku was the man I called my husband, and I am the woman he called his wife. Nothing more, nothing less. I am a widow now, left to raise our children alone, and to guide them to become better than their father. To make them stronger than he could have ever been.”

Inuyasha’s golden eyes were critical.  
“They’re hanyo. One day they won’t be able to pass off as human. The fact you’ve managed to hide it this long is… lucky.” You nod. “Do you intend to tell them? To every let them know who their father is, what he was? What he’d done?”

You frowned at the unspoken question. How long did you think you could keep this secret, keep up this elaborate ruse. “Yes. I don’t plan to hide it from them. They will know- but I do not plan to make it openly known as stands. Not until they’re old enough and skilled enough to defend themselves. Naraku made his fair share of enemies- and my sons… are my sons. I will not let them grow up to become like their father if I can help it. To think… to not understand what love is and is not. As stands I am seeing to find a means to have them properly train their more… demonic abilities in secret but there will come a time when it will be known and challenged. Hence, why I have created this place as I have. Cultivated the loyalties in my staff and the surrounding villages. Naraku wanted a legacy- and so I will destroy it. I have dedicated the rest of my life to my children, and that means making them strong enough to defeat their father at his final game. To make them better men than he ever was.”

Mirkou hummed. 

“You would have his legacy be that his own offspring become more powerful than him… and not become like him.”

You smiled faintly. “Is that now how best to outlive him? To have my revenge? He ripped apart all I had known. He forced me to stay here, in a time I do not belong, live a life I wasn’t made to have… and now am left to carry scars I will never erase and forget. He did everything in his power to break me apart- and so I will do everything I can do shatter his last wish, his last great illusion.”

“And what is that?” Sango spat, still not convinced.

“That he did not understand love.” They are confused, yet with an air of knowing Inuyasha stands, sword in it’s scabbard.

“Your sons will need someone to teach them how to blend in. How to better hide their powers. I can smell them from here, detect their demonic energy. The eldest is what- almost two now right? He’s going to start manifesting his powers soon, and you won’t have much time before word gets out that they’re hanyo.” 

“…What do you suggest?”

He paused. “I can’t promise anything. But I’ll see if I can’t find someone, call in a favor or two. They- They may be his kids… but they’re not him are they?” There is a softness their, an understanding of what you and they face.

“No. They’re not. They are... perhaps the only proof of my husband’s love for me. That he let me keep them. That he… he would let us live and not kill us is only so no other might possess us.” Your heart hurts. A phantom pain. A lie you want to believe. It is a good lie. It helps you accept his life, this reality and the choices you’ve made.

“I want them to be happy. To live outside his shadow. They deserve what he didn’t. They… are innocent of our sins. I would keep them that way if I could.”

“But you can’t.” Inuyasha does not mince his words, hide the truth unspoken in them. “They’ll be lucky if they make it to adulthood, you’ll be luckier still if you see it.” Golden eyes scan the courtyard, hovering over where you know your children sleep behind closed doors.  
“I’ll see what I can do. But I want to know… do you resent us for killing him? Did you-“

“He was a monster.” You say, unwavering. “A demon, a murderer. He was my jailer, my captor. He abused my mind and left me with trauma I will never fully heal or recover from. I am conditioned, trained to respond to certain things a certain way. But yes… I loved him, in the end.”

You hear Inuyasha suck in his breath.

“I loved him because he gave me my sons. And I love them without question. I will love them no matter what lingers in my past, no matter these scars and wounds.” You stand, walking to the half demon who murdered the man who once planned to kill you, who killed the man you called husband. The only man you’d ever feel worthy of calling your husband.

“Please, if you can, look past their blood, and help me make them stronger than him, help me make them strong enough to live in this world- help me make sure… they live knowing they’re worthy of it. Of my love. That they know what love should be.”

He looks towards where your sons sleep.

“I can try. I can’t promise anything, but I can try.”

You fight back your tears but a few linger on your lashes.

“Thank you.”

*

“You know, you never told us why you kept it. Why you used it despite knowing he gave it to you and how it reminded you of him but… I think I get it now.” The young man stood over a grave, the stone worn, but no less pristine than it had been since it had been erected.

“Ah yeah… sorry Koyo skipped out again this year- you know how he is. Says its too sad to visit like this. He’ll come around in spring probably. Most likely with a new girl on his arm. He’s still the same as ever. You’d think after this long he’d finally start to get more serious but… eh. I can’t be too hard on him. He’s just trying to I dunno…understand it I guess? You didn’t exactly leave us with an answer.” The young man pushed back his hair, the long braid hanging off his shoulder.

“I don’t quite understand your wish either. You told us to make sure we understood how important it is to know what love means but… you didn’t exactly know it yourself. I mean, your ‘relationship’ with our father wasn’t great by any stretch, and you never remarried. So... Koto womanizes and I… well I just don’t bother with thinking about it. Or I used to not think about it at any rate.”

He sighed, the golden comb resting heavy in his hand.   
“But I also think I am starting to get it? I met this girl. She’s younger than me, but… she’s strong. Dangerous given how powerful she is but I like that. It means I don’t have to worry about her you know? I run into her sometimes when I’m out hunting demons and whatnot- she kinda hated me. The usual, ‘blah blah half demon blah blah spawn of hell’ but she also doesn’t give it her all when she tries to fight me. She pulls her punches. But this one time we fought… she fell. Just up and fell into the river and I couldn’t help myself! She... she looked like a wet dog. Smelled kinda like one too and I busted out laughing. I know I know, bad move, very rude. You’d have clapped my ears for it. But mom…The pout she had… was cute. Like stupidly cute. I can’t stop thinking about it. About her. After that I just... I wanted to see what other faces she could make so I started uh… Mom I started to mess with her.”

He sighed. “I think I might have started to act a bit like dad must have. Being mean to show I. uh. Like her. I tease her, compliment her when we fight now. I like flustering her. Seeing if I can sneak a flower into her hair. I’ve tucked silk purses into her waistband- thrown, literally thrown a few jewelry items at her. Bracelet here, a hair pin there. I have no idea if she even likes them but mom I just… She blushes and stammers and augh! She’s so hecking cute! Mom… It doesn’t make sense. None of it does and is that... how it felt? How it’s supposed to feel? I mean if she told me no, like _no_ no, and really meant it, if she didn’t pull her punches and tried to kill me for real I’d back off but lately… she just pretends to ignore me. She blushes but doesn’t attack me right away anymore and… she accepted the flowers I bought her last time. I…”   
He ran his thumb over the comb.

“I think I might be in love with her? I want to know her better. Talk with her more. Find out what she likes. See her smile, for real. I want to hear what he laugh sounds like. I want… I want to hold her hand and feel how warm she is. I wanna bury my face in her hair and see what she smells like. Is that weird? Okay it does sound kinda weird.” He groaned.

“Love is supposed to mean things like caring about someone, wanting them to be happy, and not having it based on conditions and all that right? I think that’s kind of what I feel for her. But I barely know her. We’re nearly strangers and… I’m scared. I’m _his_ son and that alone makes a lot of people afraid and wary, even with me and Koto having the reputations we do. You gave me the comb and told me to give it to the person I want by my side. Not the one I love, but the one I wanted by my side. Was it a hint, a clue? You said our father was the secretive one but you were on another level… seriously.”

Wrapping the golden comb in silk he tucked it away. 

“I hope you like the flowers- I tried to make them last longer with my silk but I’m not skilled at it like Koto is. I think this year… I think I’ll ask her if she’ll let me court her. Try to do a bit of recon- Not creepy just you know, find out if she has a dad or uncle I can ask permission from.” He ignored the hum of his scout, notifying him of someone’s approach.

“I’ll see you next year okay? Hopefully with some good news. Maybe an answer. Until then, I keep hold of the comb. Just until I’m certain. Because love is a choice and commitment right? You told us when we fell in love to be ready to embrace it and understand it can come and go and for me… I don’t want to give up your treasure till I know for sure.”

Fingers brushed over the gravestone, the spider-silk roses laid at it’s feet. “I miss you mom. And I hope… I hope you are happy. That we made you happy even if we are his sons. I want to make you proud.”

He bit back his tears, his sadness. The entity came closer and when red eyes caught gold he bowed his head.

No words, just a silent threat, a silent promise of death should he walk the path he’d sworn never to tread.

Jumping onto his cloud of miasma, Konwaku shuddered. He really didn’t like Sesshomaru- why his mother had ever entertained him he had no idea, but the demon had helped train him in combat, (and almost killed him a few times in said training). But, hey, he had more important matters on his mind than trying to ever win any approval from the daiyokai. Namely, how to convince the demon slayer girl he’d been discretely following that he wanted to court her. Court her proper and right- and see if maybe he really was in love with her?

It was complicated. But his mother did say that is what love was like. Complicated. She once told him that in her final days with his father, he had called her his songbird. It was why she chose to make her crest that of a sparrow.  
“I chose to hide my strength underneath my song, to hide the truth in plain sight. I wanted to give my sons the wings I had clipped from me… and for you to know you are more than his son. You are my son too. The son of the human woman who outlasted and outlived the greatest evil to have ever plagued this land. You are not his legacy, you are mine.” She kissed his brow. “Even so…You are not like me, not a sparrow, defenseless, able to only sing and fly from your fears and dangers- you are a hawk. Fearless, brave and oh so smart. I am proud to call you my son, and one day hope you understand how much I love you and your brother both.” 

Her words often left him confused. She spoke in broken meanings, in vague symbolism. Master Miyoga said it was likely a result of her time as his father’s wife, when she had to break her own humanity and sanity in order to survive by his side. It often hurt to think that the mother who loved him so much had suffered such pain from his father… and still professed some form of love for him too. He wished sometimes that his mother had never met his father, that she’d have been spared him, spared all the horrors he had learned she had endured. 

For him. For his brother. For herself. 

The comb rested against his breast, heavy and full of meaning and intent.

He’d hold off on giving it to the girl. Not until he knew for sure he loved her and wanted to walk by her side. He wasn’t going to be his father, the kind of man who didn’t understand love. He wanted to be like his mother.  
He wanted to know what love was, and how it was more than one thing, one meaning.

Konwaku made his decision, not thinking on his mother’s final request. 

To be laid to rest in Onigumo’s cave, and for her grave marker to be titles the way it was.

‘Husband and Wife.  
The Spider and his Songbird’


End file.
